COLUMN ONE : The Perils of Airport Runways : Records show that warnings about confusing and unsafe conditions have gone unheeded. Detroit has been especially criticized by pilots.

A jetliner accelerating down runway 21C at Detroit got an urgent command from the tower to abort takeoff. Almost simultaneously, and just in time, the pilot saw the problem. Up ahead, another jetliner was taxiing across his path. “It was an ‘almost,’ ” the pilot wrote in a report on the near-accident.

That was early in 1985, but in the years leading up to Monday’s collision between two Northwest Airlines jetliners at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, many more “almosts” would be reported at that airfield--and hundreds more around the nation.

In fact, warnings by pilots and other aviation experts about confusing and potentially unsafe conditions on the runways at Detroit and other U.S. airports went unheeded for years. Records reviewed by The Times show numerous examples of runway violations over the last five years, many of which required aborting landings or takeoffs to avoid disaster.

The reports--written by pilots and air traffic controllers and filed within 10 days of an incident with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration--show that runway problems are widespread. Among local airports most frequently criticized by pilots is Burbank Airport.

The thousands of NASA reports include some that read like chapters from “The Perils of Pauline.”

One chagrined jetliner captain who made a wrong turn at Detroit and found himself “nose to nose” with an oncoming aircraft in 1986 wrote: “I believe that taxiway markings at all major airports must be improved--especially at night or in fog.”

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airplane accidents, has yet to fix blame in Monday’s collision. But from Detroit to New York to Burbank, the accounts of near-misses detailed in the pilot reports share a common element: For whatever reason, someone moves his plane onto the wrong runway or taxiway and into conflict with another aircraft. In many cases, eerily perhaps, the passengers in back never knew how close to disaster they came.

“It’s not a new problem,” Mike Benson, a spokesman for the NTSB in Washington, said in an interview. “This is an area we’ve been concerned with for some time. We would have hoped that it would have received more attention than it has” before the recent Detroit accident.

In fact, since a spate of near-accidents on the ground in the late 1970s, nearly everyone in the aviation industry--from pilots and air traffic controllers to the NTSB--has been pressing the Federal Aviation Administration to improve ground operations at the nation’s major airports.

Last year, the NTSB warned that ground accidents posed “a high potential for catastrophe.” Since 1986, the agency has put ground safety improvements on its list of “Most Wanted” recommendations.

The world’s worst aviation accident occurred on a runway in the Canary Islands in 1977, when two Boeing 747s collided in the fog, killing 583.

Earlier this year, an Eastern Airlines jet ran over a small plane that had landed on the same runway at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, killing the pilot of the small plane.

Detroit has been especially criticized in past years by pilots who complained about confusing or badly weathered taxiway markings. One veteran airline pilot who inadvertently taxied across an active runway complained in a lengthy 1986 report that the taxiway markings were “very confusing” and sometimes “illogical.” The pilot complained also that it “has been a known problem at this airport for some (time).”

About a year later, a jumbo jet pilot “became disoriented” when taxiing to a maintenance ramp and ended up on a runway just as another jetliner was lined up to land on it. An alert traffic controller ordered the landing aborted about 700 feet from touchdown. The controller said that similar errors occurred “several more times” in one evening.

Noting problems with Tarmac area markings and the confluence of taxiways and runways in a heavily trafficked area, the controller also wrote: “The location of this intersection causes the probability of collision to be very high.”

In another Detroit incident, a jetliner actually took off over the top of a smaller passenger plane that had landed ahead of it but had failed to find its way off the active runway. The 1986 near-miss occurred on the same runway as Monday’s accident.

The FAA says potentially dangerous ground hazards are created by a wide range of conditions and the many “aircrafts, vehicles, persons or objects on the ground” that could accidentally disturb the routine operations of taxiing planes.

Officials also blamed forgetfulness, misunderstandings between cockpit and control tower, attention lapses and pilot failures to see runway markings for most of the reported runway errors.

The FAA’s official tally of what it calls “runway incursions” shows no discernible pattern, averaging about 280 mishaps between 1986 and 1989. Through October this year, the FAA has reported 220 runway incursions at the nation’s 400 government-supervised airports.

Although the FAA reports few runway incidents involving Southern California airports, the NASA records reviewed by The Times reflect considerable pilot and air traffic controller concern about the problem, especially at Burbank.

--In 1987, for example, a jetliner aborted takeoff when the pilot noticed “out of the corner of my eye” that another plane was taxiing to take off on a crossing runway, each of them initially blocked from the view of the other by the Burbank terminal building. Both planes hit their brakes. One was able to stop short of the intersection as the other continued through. “The passengers neither noticed the other aircraft, nor became alarmed at the braking,” the pilot wrote.

--In 1985, another pilot complained of dodging a second airliner as the tower instructed two planes to taxi toward the same intersection.

--One veteran of airline operations at Burbank complained that it “is the only airport I have seen where they will use crossing runways in everyday operation rather than assign an active runway and use it (exclusively). You are always being sequenced ‘to the intersection’ of the crossing runways,” the pilot said in recommending that runway operations be simplified.

Pilot complaints of landing, takeoff and runway procedures at Burbank and other government-supervised airports are directed at the FAA, which has responsibility for those operations. But Paul Stofall, a spokesman for the FAA, brushes off such criticism, saying the FAA is “moving rapidly” to make runway operations safer.

“In hindsight, it’s always easier to say something should have been done sooner,” he said. “It’s always easier to point your finger at someone else.”

Nevertheless, Stofall acknowledged that a ground radar system might have helped avoid the Detroit incident.

“A ground radar system in a low visibility situation is a definite advantage in controlling aircraft on the ground,” he said, adding that such a system is being tested in 12 cities and is expected to be improved and installed in 20 more cities over the next three years.

But Tim Neale, a spokesman for the Airline Transport Assn., a Washington organization representing the nation’s air carriers, accused the government of being too wrapped in bureaucratic red tape to produce the state-of-the-art technology needed.

“We have been very critical of the FAA because so often their programs get so far behind schedule,” Neale said in an interview Tuesday. “Whether this technology could have been brought along faster, I don’t know. But, in general, they have been slow to apply technology to existing problems. They are hampered by a lot of rules and regulations that inhibit their getting things done.”

The NASA reports show that ground conflicts are dangerously common at airports around the country. For example:

--At San Francisco International in 1987, one airliner had two close encounters with cluttered runways. First, the crew was forced to “go around” once when the runway was not clear for it to land. Then, after touchdown and turning off onto the taxiway, the pilot reported that “a commuter (plane) appeared to my left taxiing rapidly . . . coming at me. I hit the brakes. He hit the brakes, and we stopped 20 feet apart, nose to nose.” The tower controller apologized for not warning the airline captain to use a different runway exit.

--More recently at San Francisco, a captain of only three days who had flown into the airport only once before--in daylight--was preparing for a night takeoff alongside a co-pilot with only two months on the job when the co-pilot said: “Something is really wrong here.” By then the plane was throttled forward, gaining takeoff speed. The captain immediately pulled back on the throttles and aborted takeoff. It turned out they were on the taxiway, not the runway.

--At Los Angeles International in 1988, an airliner landed and exited the runway on the angled “high-speed” turnoff to the taxiway. It was cleared by ground controllers to proceed directly to the passenger gate. Another plane on the taxiway was told to hold and wait. The other plane didn’t stop, however, and the landing captain complained: “I immediately came to a rapid stop. As the other aircraft passed by us, with no more than 20 feet of clearance between his wingtip and the nose of our aircraft, we observed the first officer give us the notorious finger salute.”

--After landing on runway 35R at Dallas-Ft. Worth, a pilot taxied across a runway without traffic controller permission. Radio frequencies to the tower were jammed, he said. Before crossing, he “observed the area to be clear,” but it turned out that he cut off an unseen jumbo jet.

The NTSB says it has been worried about the runway safety problem since a series of near-collisions occurred between June, 1978, and February, 1979. And after a near-collision involving a jumbo jet at Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1985, the agency put the issue on its “Most Wanted” list.

Among its proposals, the safety board suggests that the government require better communications procedures between taxiing pilots and control tower officials and improve runway markings.

To date, the FAA has adopted some of the board’s recommendations, but officials said greater improvements in communications procedures and runway marking systems are needed.

“We would have hoped (all the recommendations) would get more attention than it has,” said Benson at the NTSB.

Air traffic controllers also are impatient for improvements.

“We’ve had so many problems in the air that we haven’t focused as we should on runway problems,” said Tony Dresden, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn.

Research assistance for this story was provided by Richard O’Reilly and Maureen Lyons.

THE INVESTIGATION

Heavy fog and a lack of ground guidance systems are being studied as possible contributing causes in Monday’s collision of a DC-9 and a 727 on the center runway of the Detroit airport.

* The DC-9 should have been on taxiway X while the 727 was accelerating for takeoff on runway 3C.

The Collision: The tip of the 727’s right wing hit the right side of the DC-9 begind the cockpit, rake along its fuselage at about window height and knocked off its right tail engine.